Backyard Jungles

That list of links is fantastic!
Thanks for sharing the knowledge behind your green thumb.

No problem-

The internet is really a great source of plants. You can read about them on davesgarden.com (plantfiles) and then find out the scientific name- and google that to find mailorder places to get it if you cant find it locally. Ebay is also a decent plant source.

I don't have alot of experience gardening in Northern climates, but I have family in Connecticut and I've seen alot of cool plants and trees up there- including bamboo.. that if collected and presented properly would create a very lush tropical look. I think it could be done :)

Not to mention mosses grow so well up there- Nothing like getting or making some concrete tikis and then slathering on the yogurt mix to create a mossy relic.

You also have lots of great fern options up there, I'm sure. You may even be able to grow Australian tree ferns if you kept them in a pot and overwintered them in a garage or something.

Who knows, perhaps even plumeria could be overwintered in a garage.

I think that Giant Rhubarb is particularly cool looking..

http://images.google.com/images?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=Gunnera%20manicata&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[ Edited by: fatuhiva 2008-10-01 21:16 ]

Brian, it's always good to see you are still here. Hope the hurricanes missed your paradise.

Plant Delights is the place you want to start. They specialize in sub-tropicals and tropical looking plants and their nursery is around Zone 7. They are good about stating what zone the plants are hardy in. Huge selection. We have a filed trip planned for next spring to go get a large variety, and then pinch pennies for months to recover!

Heya Sven

Yes, I'm still here- we've gotten by just fine this season :)

26 inches of rain dropped on Melbourne during Fay, we werent in town for the storm. I was getting reports from neighbors.. the place made out fine. Just lots of rain- when I got back it was greener than ever.

Now that I've said that I believe a Category 5 storm is forming off the coast of Africa with my name on it hahaha

Hope all is well with you!

[ Edited by: fatuhiva 2008-10-02 20:41 ]

Some beautifull places here.

Thought I'd join in, at least in tribute to my wife's gardening skills (hope the garden survives the summer, weve been in drought a long time).

I have got to get some more Tiki's, but they are a bit thin on the ground in Melbourne.

Anyhow, for what its worth

Vonratnick, I love your back yard jungle also. Your wife does a great job.. With or without tiki's, it's a great looking jungle. She can come to our place and work on it.
I'd love to have some of that jungle look going on. :lol:

[I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy]
Although, I probably could you one.
MYSPACE

[ Edited by: tikipaka 2008-10-03 01:59 ]

Thanks Swanky, I also tried planting these from seed and nothing happened?
But then I checked out your site and I guess they said it all about this growing in the northeast. :lol: http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/04947.html

Does anyone up here in the Northeast, have great luck with tropicals and if so can you post your pictures of what actually will make it through our winters without having to have a greenhouse? As my husband would say, "you want it all, but you don't want to work for it". He's talking about gardening.. Weeds, I just hate them. :lol:

[I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy]
Although, I probably could you one.
MYSPACE

[ Edited by: tikipaka 2008-10-05 02:33 ]

On 2008-10-05 02:30, tikipaka wrote:
Thanks Swanky, I also tried planting these from seed and nothing happened?
But then I checked out your site and I guess they said it all about this growing in the northeast. :lol: http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/04947.html

Does anyone up here in the Northeast, have great luck with tropicals and if so can you post your pictures of what actually will make it through our winters without having to have a greenhouse? As my husband would say, "you want it all, but you don't want to work for it". He's talking about gardening.. Weeds, I just hate them. :lol:

---

[I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy]
Although, I probably could you one.
MYSPACE

[ Edited by: tikipaka 2008-10-05 02:33 ]

What zone are you in?

Also consider, though I live in USDA Zone 6a-7b, the winter lows have only been to 8a level (about 15 degrees), so, we are really in 8b right now.

There are plants that will thrive and stay in the ground. Some will need extar attention that is easy, like adding 10-12 inches of mulch on top. Then some need more, like diggin them up and putting them in the basement or under the house over winter and planting them again in spring. Let them die to the ground and dig them up.

The other thing you have to do is fertilize. Most tropical (sub-tropicals actually) are heavy nitrogen feeders. Nitrogen helps produce the green foliage. So, go to the farmers coop and get something like 23-10-10 and fertilize around the first of th emonth all growing season. Water daily. This will help get more out of your plants in their short growing seasons. Especially bananas. You should get a leaf a week or so if it is properly fertilize and watered.

Just pick you hardiest plants first! Save yourself from having to dig!

Thanks again, Swanky. We're in zone 5 and we get well below freezing and some really cold hard frosts. This year we had a nice warm spell and then such a hard frost that it killed off my wisteria that was ready to bloom. The flowers just shriveled up and died. :(

On 2008-10-05 12:16, tikipaka wrote:
Thanks again, Swanky. We're in zone 5 and we get well below freezing and some really cold hard frosts. This year we had a nice warm spell and then such a hard frost that it killed off my wisteria that was ready to bloom. The flowers just shriveled up and died. :(

We had our plumeria ready to bloom for the first time. Had 100 buds. It bloomed maybe 6 times and then it got cold and it all shriveled up. Like 60 degrees was all it took. So I feel some of your pain...

Your key to Beachbum Berry's books. Login and start concocting!

[ Edited by: Swanky 2008-10-05 15:05 ]

On 2008-10-03 01:57, tikipaka wrote:
Vonratnick, I love your back yard jungle also. Your wife does a great job.. With or without tiki's, it's a great looking jungle. She can come to our place and work on it.
I'd love to have some of that jungle look going on. :lol:

Tikipaka,

Thanks, she does the thinking, I do the grunt work.

I'll toast you poolside with some stuka juice tonight!

Cheers

I think that Giant Rhubarb is particularly cool looking..

Can you use it to make a giant rhubarb pie? :P

Just in front of the Rusty Key entrance.
This is a Ti plant I started from a cutting from Kauai a few years ago.
It must be pretty happy here.

Our backyard get-a-way.

I picked up a bamboo shoot at a local Asian market, it was in the produce section but I'm not sure exactly how you would eat it :o It was actually one of the smallest ones! It has some little dots/bumps around the base that look they would sprout into roots - will it grow if I plant it?

Very interesting MDM. Wish I knew but I only play with dead Bamboo.

The lil' roots remind me of what you see when you plant a Pineapple

Crown.

Mike,

These guys (Bamboo Plantation) seem to know an awful lot about bamboo, you might try giving them a call to hear what they have to say.

Bear

Mike, I would say plant it. What is the worst scenario? I have several banana plants and they are pretty hardy. I have transplanted a few I thought were dying but they bounced back and are doing just fine. I live in the valley and the weather is hot and dry. Make sure you start it first in a pot in a semi shady spot and with good rich potting soil and keep it moist evenly until the roots form. Keep us posted.

On 2008-09-29 21:44, fatuhiva wrote:
and a little visitor.. er, resident..

Is that snake real?! If I had something like that living in my backyard, you can bet I wouldn't be enjoying the outdoors much! Even if it's fake, perched in the tree like that, I'm sure it's frightened plenty of visitors to your jungle.
:o

[ Edited by: DejaVoodoo 2011-05-05 19:48 ]

On 2008-12-20 07:47, SizzlePixels wrote:
Our backyard get-a-way.

Can I be your Pool guy?
wink wink.
:wink:

Jeff(btd)

Thanks for the advice tiki peeps. My plan is to plant it and see what happens - I only paid a buck for it :D

Within the next few months here my Girlfriend and I are likely to be moving closer to the coast, and like many of you I'll be stuck with the prospect of gardening on a patio. Still, its not a death sentence, potted cycad here, ornamental grass there, some shade cloth, some epiphytes. working my existing succulent collection into a tiki patio will be a challenge, but nobody said it had to be perfect, and rum covers many sins.

somewhere in n San Diego County CA... this guy planted all the landscape him self... and had me carve a Canary Isl. palm after it passed away... pretty cool when it was all done.






so i did some "Photo-shoot" shooting

[ Edited by: crazy al 2011-05-07 10:50 ]

I love this thread, some amazing gardens shown here. I wish I would have the drive to create something like this, I just don't have that green thumb. But I am constantly amazed what grows "wild" around my house, and very appreciative of it. To someone hailing from cold Northern Germany, this IS like living in a tropical jungle:

LUV IT!!!!
power-lines and all... they always get in every shot.

[ Edited by: crazy al 2011-05-07 12:04 ]

You left out this photo from your backyard bigbro:

Wow really beautiful backyard!
I love your place.
Why I never saw this post before...

On 2011-05-05 17:06, MadDogMike wrote:
I picked up a bamboo shoot at a local Asian market, it was in the produce section but I'm not sure exactly how you would eat it :o It was actually one of the smallest ones! It has some little dots/bumps around the base that look they would sprout into roots - will it grow if I plant it?

Well it's been 3 weeks since I planted my bamboo shoot and I gently pulled it up tonight to see rooting progress. I looked carefully and saw a little white root - then it moved! It wasn't a root at all but some sort of worm/maggot! . I guess that experiment didn't work out :lol: But it wasn't for lack of proper conditions - the piece of ginger root I planted at the same time is taking root.

I have a tropical gardening blog (Backyard Exotica) to document my own experiences 'tropicalifying' my Southern California apartment garden. (Yeah, I'm one of the lucky few apartment dwellers with a garden!) I'm not necessarily a tropical gardening expert, but I've been learning a lot as I go along and loving every minute of it. Here are a few before/after photos of my garden.

Ron Sawyer
http://www.backyardexotica.com

[ Edited by: BackyardExotica 2011-09-01 00:23 ]

Liking it!

LOL Grog! You are such a busy Grog helping people out with their jungle yards. I just found some of that very stuff in a freezer, but it wasn't my freezer.

Welcome to Tiki Central Ron, great looking garden

My yard sucks...

Cool yards. No pics of mine....I've just started planting stuff around. Bought a papaya from the store and harvested the seeds from it. Sprouted a bunch of them and now I have about 17 waist size papaya plants scattered around the yard. They grow fast and should start producing fruit after about 8 months. Bought 5 small finger banana sprouts from a guy in the neighborhood who has a yard full of them. Also sprouted an avocado pit and transplanted that in the yard, it's one of the large smooth skinned ones that they grow here in Florida...not the bumpy small skinned ones they grow in Cali. About 20 pineapple growing in a plot by the house, got 4 fruit off them last year, but only one this year.

Got an accidental watermelon plant....noticed it growing by the compost bin and just let it go. A seed must of gotten loose during composting and started growing. Got one melon on it.

We have a calimansi tree (what they call it in the Philippines, where my wife is from...think it's called a calamodin or something like that here), it's a few years old, but hasn't produced any fruit or flowers yet. Wife bought it from the local Filipino store, so it may have been started from seed and just not mature yet. May buy another from a nursery so we have one that produces.

howlinowl

(edited to correct spelling)

[ Edited by: howlinowl 2011-09-02 08:00 ]

I had a papaya tree I planted last summer that was growing like a weed. We had an unusually cold winter that killed it in spite of my blankets and lightbulbs. I started to buy another one this spring and then I said "Wait a minute, I don't even LIKE papaya!" So I bought a fig instead :lol:

Figs? Did you know that most of those crunchy things in fig newtons are actually parts of a wasp?

Nice.

Anyway, HELLO MDM, my friend!

Fig trees also have a very strong odor......

We have tones of White Ginger growing that smells way better than any mainland plumeria. The root is similar to ginger in the veggie section. I'm chicken to try/eat it though.

Mmm, white ginger sounds really nice. I've got some sort of ginger plant that I recently started growing from a bulb that I purchased at the garden show at South Coast Plaza this past Spring. It's growing nicely but no flowers yet.

On 2011-09-01 16:52, hang10tiki wrote:
My yard sucks...

Just throw a few banana and alocasia plants back there and they'll soon take over.
Your climate is ideal.

From the tropics of Tacoma, O.K. so the last three summers have been colder than normal and the last three winters have been freakish, but I'm still trying to grow my own paradise. Excuse the puny bananas we've had no heat. (and my over numerous pics)

don't know the name of this ginger but it's bloomed every year for the last 12 years.

![](https://tikicentral.com/uploads/12811/4e72df20.jpg[/img

[img]https://tikicentral.com/uploads/12811/4e72f0cf.jpg)

new garden area with pindo palms

aloha, tikicoma

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2011-09-15 23:53 ]

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2011-09-16 10:11 ]

Beautiful personal slice of paradise you've got there, tikicoma.

Bear

Your garden looks amazing. Would never guess you've had a colder summer.

On 2011-09-15 22:54, tikicoma wrote:
From the tropics of Tacoma, O.K. so the last three summers have been colder than normal and the last three winters have been freakish, but I'm still trying to grow my own paradise. Excuse the puny bananas we've had no heat. (and my over numerous pics)

don't know the name of this ginger but it's bloomed every year for the last 12 years.

![](https://tikicentral.com/uploads/12811/4e72df20.jpg[/img

[img]https://tikicentral.com/uploads/12811/4e72f0cf.jpg)

new garden area with pindo palms

aloha, tikicoma

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2011-09-15 23:53 ]

[ Edited by: tikicoma 2011-09-16 10:11 ]

Moved to Home Tiki Bars from General. Thanks John-O.

Bump!

I've always loved tropical plants and flowers. Nothing screams "paradise" like huge Elephant Ears, fragrant Plumeria, colorful hibiscus and, of course, palm trees! Since my recent move from the east coast to the west coast, where the climate is more amiable towards tropicals, I have developed that love even deeper. I'd actually rather have a "Backyard Jungle" over a tiki bar for my escapism. Until that day comes, I can only dream...and snag eye-candy images off the 'net! So, here are some I've collected over the past few years that really trip my trigger. I can picture sipping a mai tai with exotica music on the hi-fi in any one of these "backyards"!

Luke, I almost gushed about what a beautiful backyard you have, good thing I actually read instead of just looking at the pics :lol:

Good luck with your dream backyard